EDIUS Pro

Adobe Premiere Pro

EDIUS' biggest strength is its stability. We have customers who have said they have never had a crash.

It is also quick. Its probably fair to say that you can get a job done quicker with EDIUS once you know how to use it than with other programs. It has the best realtime performance of all the editing programs and also supports new formats of video before other programs.

EDIUS' realtime playback will also work while editing using a DV deck - so if your workflow still includes playback to a DV device EDIUS will definitely win.  Premiere's realtime playback does not work when using a DV device for playback.

Performance with different types of video format also varies.  Both are now very good at handling native AVCHD and other H264 formats for example, and on a modern machine with the right graphic card (for Adobe) you will find they are both pretty similar - maybe EDIUS can manage 4 layers of Pnp while Premiere only manages 3½ but it is pretty close. 

Built-in Features

With EDIUS you can output to Blu-ray and DVD from the timeline. Disc writing is not as comprehensive with EDIUS as it is with Premiere Pro and Encore, but quicker and easier.  You can do more comprehensive DVD/Blu-ray writing than possible with EDIUS using Adobe Encore which always comes with Premiere Pro.  We actually have quite a few people who will edit in EDIUS but make their DVDs in Encore because of the extra flexibility.  There is nothing wrong with this of course  it just means you need to buy both programs.

EDIUS has some features not found in Adobe Premiere:

• You can rip footage of DVD and Blu-ray discs for re-editing.  With CS5.5 Premiere Pro will let you copy VOBs of a DVD and put them on the timeline but does not combine them into one piece of footage - and since DVDs are split at 1GB per file automatically (it may even be half way through a sentence) you may find that there are slight glitches at the joins.  EDIUS will show you a list of titles and you select the one you want and rip it.
• AVCHD writer - you can write AVCHD files back to your cameras hard drive or memory stick to me played on a camera of other device like a Blu-ray player with a card reader.
• EDIUS can also stamp the date and time of the original shot onto the footage when recorded to tape, encoded to a file or burned to DVD or Blu-ray.  This has proved to be a killer reason to buy EDIUS for some people.
• Import and copy footage - with EDIUS when you import footage either from a card-based camera or any source you can choose to get EDIUS to copy the footage onto your computer.  EDIUS puts the footage in the same place as the project which is great for keeping your projects tidy.  It makes it easy to get footage off a card-based camera and into the computer.
• Field editing and proxy mode - you can create low resolution versions of your footage (proxies), copy them on to a different machine, and when you return to the main computer EDIUS merges the projects and copies across any newly added footage. In other words it streamlines the whole process, making it as easy as possible.  Proxies can also be used to playback really complicated timelines in low resolution if your computer cannot play them back in high resolution.
• Mask filter - This filter lets you draw a completely keyframble matte with feathered edges - something you can only do with Adobe After Effects, not Premiere Pro.
• EDIUS has an image stabilising plug-in from ProDad included, plus a lot of glow and arty effects in the form of Vitascene and New Blu Effects

Premiere also has lots of other features not found in EDIUS:

• Extensive metadata support - if there is any extra information in the file Premiere will see it and you can add your own - very useful for things like rights management.
• High quality scaling - you can enable the high quality option to get a better image when downscaling HD to SD, for example.  A good illustration for this is our tutorial DVDs.  We film the computer screen in high definition and then pan and scan the image and re-scale it to standard definition for the DVD video version.  Putting a computer screen on an SD DVD is always a struggle because there is so much fine details and if we scale in EDIUS this is lost.  If we scale in Premiere Pro it produces an acceptable output.   Of course there is nothing to stop you editing in EDIUS and scaling in a different program - for our EDIUS 6 tutorial we actually edited the entire tutorial in EDIUS and scaled the output using a program called TMPEG.
• A lot more effects - for colour & image correction we have about 15 filters in Premiere where as EDIUS has 3.  This gives us that extra 5% we mentioned above.
• Speech transcription - get premiere to transcribe all your clips and then search the results for particular words.  At present this is about 40% accurate but bound to improve.
• Dynamic link with other Adobe programs (see below).

Format Support

Playback of the formats is also pretty similar even with highly compressed formats like AVCHD.  Both can now play the video as it comes off the camera very well, although EDIUS has a slight edge is and is generally a bit "nippier".  This assumes you are using a fairly up-to-date computer such as an  i7 or Sandybridge processor.  On 3-4 year old computers both will struggle, but EDIUS comes with a quick built-in way of encoding to a different format, called Canopus HQ, for machines that cannot cope with the footage.

Premiere also supports rendering in 10 bit colour.  EDIUS 6 now also only supports 10 bit colour, but not all the filters have been optimised to use it.   For most people using formats like AVCHD, DV, HDV, XDCAM and DVCPro HD and outputting to DVD or Blu-ray 10 bit colour support is immaterial as all these formats are only 8 bit.

Capture and Clips

EDIUS can also take footage off DVDs (non-copy protected DVDs), Blu-ray discs and music from CDs, Premiere does not. The DVD ripping side does not work with all DVDs, but worked with most we have tried.  We have even had customers buy EDIUS as an add-on for their Premiere system just to be able to rip footage off DVD for re-editing!

Both programs handle clips, project management and recapture in a pretty similar way. Premiere now has the slight edge in that you choose to consolidate and recapture just one timeline rather than the whole project but this is a pretty minor point.  Importing and recapturing EDLs in EDIUS is slightly easier than Premiere Pro, but on the whole they are comparable.   Premiere can import and export Final Cut pro-style projects, where as EDIUS can only import them (well who would want to go back to Final Cut Pro after trying EDIUS ;-))

Clips are viewed in the source window as you would expect and Premiere does have an edge as it allows you to view the sound as a waveform before it is added to the timeline, and you can even zoom into it to see very quiet sounds.  With EDIUS you can only see the waveform when a clip is on the timeline.

Sound editing

EDIUS also comes with quite a few useful sound effects including a reasonably decent effect for removing noise from a clip, pitch shift and EQ.

A new addition is audio normalising - whereby you select a few clips and tell EDIUS to automatically raise/lower the audio level of each clip so they peak at the same level.  Useful for quickly increasing the sound levels as much as possible without causing distortion.  Of course Premiere has had this effect for years...

There is no surround sound mixing as you have in Premiere although you can output a 5.1 surround sound file from EDIUS in Dolby format, and write it to a DVD - something you can't do in Premiere without buying an extra plug-in; it's just a shame you cannot decide what sound goes where (ie front, back, left, right, centre) because you can't mix it!

Premiere can also mix full 5.1 surround sound - although you need an extra plug-in to get this sound mix on to a DVD.

Premiere can adjust sound on the clip level or track level, sound effects can be applied to an entire track or just one clip and several audio tracks can be routed to another track, or bus, so that effects can be applied to all at once.

The sound editing of Premiere Pro is undoubtedly superior to EDIUS; EDIUS sound editing can best be compared to Premiere 6.5 abilities, although for many people this is enough - and if you want more you could always buy Adobe Audition orSony Sound Forge and do high quality sound edits there - even if you are editing with EDIUS.

Effects

EDIUS does not have as many filters and lacks keyframing on some of the effects but what it does it does very well. 

EDIUS also has some effects which Premiere does not:

Decent 3D effects - the basic 3D pnp effect is much nicer to use than Premiere Pro's "Basic 3D" effect, and that's not even going into the joys of EDIUS layouter which does 2D and 3D motion. EDIUS has a range of  GPU 3D transitions, cubes, spheres, warps and explosion effects.  Many of our customers use these kinds of effects as their clients insist on them. Premiere has a large range of pretty basic transitions that has not changed since the days or Premiere (not Pro).  There were some fancy GPU effects in CS4 but they did not make it into CS5 and also the ones that used to come with the Matrox cards are no more.  You can add in a plug-in like Boris if you need fancy effects, but they do not come with Premiere Pro.

EDIUS also ships with some effects made by other companies - some bundles of EDIUS do not contain all the effects but most do:

ProDAD Mercalli - a decent image stabiliser to straighten out wobbly shots

ProDAD Vitascene - movie look effects as well as various glow and sparkle effects.

NewBlu Effects - various tools for cleaning up video, smoothing people's skin (ie removing wrinkles etc..) and corner pinning.

EDIUS does have a "plug-in bridge" for Adobe After Effects plug-ins so you can use standard After Effects plug-ins inside EDIUS.  However it does not work for all  types of effects and all effects end up with the same kind of interface which can be a bit confusing.

All the effects are controlled through the Effects Control Window and they all follow the same logic. So learn how to keyframe one and you can keyframe them all.  EDIUS has many different styles of effects palettes for different effects - how you keyframe the 2d pnp is completely different to how you keyframe the 3D pnp for example. 

Premiere has more plug-ins available although both Boris and ProDad plug-ins work in both programs.

Buy the Production Studio and your effects potential is practically limitless as you get access to After Effects, and with the dynamic link can easily swap footage and compositions between After Effects and Premiere Pro.

Titles

EDIUS’ has other titling options.  The best is Vistitle which can do 2D and 3D text animation as well as glow effects, lens flares and various types of object effects.  It is easy to use and comprehensive.  It does cost an extra £260+VAT, but that is not as much as buying After Effects to work with Adobe Premiere Pro (which can achieve the same kinds of effects and more.

Prodad Heroglyph is also a great little titling program, not as customisable as Vistitle but easy to use once you have worked out the programs logic, and cheaper than Vistitle.

You can also use Inscriber Title Motion, can do 2D, and even 3D fully animated titles - which is can render very quickly. Title Motion is not the most friendly titler in the world, so will take a bit of effort to learn, however, its animation capabilities are huge.  TMP is actually a discontinued product these days although you can still make it work in EDIUS 6.

For more complex animated titles you would use After Effects - which does come with many pre-made templates, and offers you huge amounts of options.  The scope of titles you can achieve with After Effects is huge as it is much more than a titling program.  If you want to use After Effects as well as Premiere Pro it is better and cheaper to buy the Adobe Production Studio than Premiere as After Effects separately as you get a lot more for your money.

DVD & Blu-ray writing

You can now add titles to your DVD and disable all the buttons on the DVD remote for the title - so for example people have to watch the copyright notice on your DVD.  However every bit of video on your DVD has to have a button on the menu, so your copyright notice will also appear on the DVD menu as something people can play, which is a bit odd to be honest.

To make a more complex DVD you must use another program - and many people chose to use Adobe Encore.  To get Encore you have to buy Premiere Pro - since both programs ship together, so many EDIUS users actually have Premiere Pro but choose to use EDIUS instead.

Another alternative is Sony DVD Architect a program of similar abilities to Adobe Encore.  This always ships with Sony Vegas.  The good news is if buying a system you can get an OEM copy for just £209+VAT.

EDIUS' writing is also fast, although with the new 64 bit Adobe Premiere Pro the latter has become nearly as fast as EDIUS

With both programs you can add extra hardware to speed up encoding - with EDIUS this would be the Grass Valley FireCoder Blu, with Premiere Pro this would be a MAX version of the Matrox MX02.  Both will make you a Blu-ray disc in realtime (ie an hour takes an hour).

EDIUS 6 also supports encoding using an Intel SANDYBRIDGE processor.  This is actually even faster than using a FireCoder Blu and has more quality options.   However to use this ability of these Intel Sandybridge processors you need to use the built-in graphic card for the processor, which to be honest is not very good for editing.  Most people would use a proper graphic card which disables this ability.  The net upshot is this encoding ability is not that useful at the moment but in a few months we hope to have a way of using both a decent graphic card and the Sandybridge encoding.

EDIUS Blu-ray writing does not support any progressive projects only interlace ones.  So if you film at 720P you cannot make a Blu-ray disc with EDIUS without converting the footage.  Encore supports every valid type of Blu-ray disc or DVD.

There is nothing to stop you using Encore with EDIUS, but it will cost more money.   Encore is only available with Premiere and they cost about £600. If you already own an old copy of Premiere you can get it via an upgrade which costs £229 +VAT.

Encoding to Blu-ray is not that fast although you can add aMatrox Compress HD (a kind of Matrox FireCoder Blu) to speed up the process.

Multi-camera

Dynamic link

For example to get footage from EDIUS to Adobe After Effects you can create an AAF file which saves the edit as a selection of separate clips on the timeline, then you have to import this into Premiere Pro (as After Effects does not import AAF files) and from Premiere jump to After Effects.

With Premiere Pro you select your clips and choose "replace with After Effects composition".

Adobe Encore - send a timeline from Premiere Pro to Encore complete with chapter points.  Any changes you make in Premiere are instantly updated in Encore.

Adobe After Effects - send a Premiere edit to After Effects and not only does it maintain all the clips as individual items in After Effects, laid out in the correct places but 90% of the effects done in Premiere  will still be there in After Effects.  You do not even have to make a movie out of After Effects to get it back in Premiere Pro - just drop the composition onto the timeline and Premiere will make it for you.

Audition - send a Premiere timeline to Audition and like After Effects it will keep alll your clips as separate items in the mix and you can tweak them to your heart's content, then send the results back to Premiere Pro.

Photoshop - import a layered Photoshop file into Premiere pro and you can choose to import it as a sequence with all the layers separate - it even remembers any blending modes you may have set in Photoshop.   EDIUS will load Photoshop files, and keep any transparent backgrounds, but will not load the picture as a sequence and split up the layers.

Customisation

Output options

It can export to nearly every format you want and can do up-scaling and down-scaling as well as frame rate conversions as part of the process. 

EDIUS cannot do FLASH and even if ProCoder is added it can only do older formats of Flash.  

EDIUS is also missing some other formats, such as MP3.  It's MP4 encoding, carried out using QuickTime does not produce as good results as the Adobe Encoder either

All is handled via the ADOBE MEDIA ENCODER - a stand alone program into which you can add either individual files or Premiere timelines, so you can batch encode just like you can with EDIUS. In fact AME goes further then EDIUS, in that it will run in the background while you carry on editing.  There are also some high quality rendering options you can choose which will improve quality of, for example, down scaling an HD timeline to SD (at the cost of a lot of extra rendering time).

Adobe Media Encoder is also 64 bit which means it utilises the power of your multi-core processor better than EDIUS, although in practice it is not really faster when encoding the same kind of formats.

Like Encore you could use the Adobe Media Encoder with EDIUS - just export a simple AVI file from EDIUS and load it into the Media Encoder.  AME always ships with Adobe Premiere Pro and Encore - so if you buy the Adobe bundle to get Encore for the DVD writing you will also get the Media Encoder.

Extra Hardware

HDSPARK - HDMI out only, and inexpensive.

HDSTORM - HDMI i/o and composite, SVIDEO and composite i/o if you buy the HDSTORM Plus

STORM 3G - HD-SDI i/o plus HDMI out.

STORM 3G Elite - everything in and out, recording to Grass Valleys 10bit HQ format, and working on a laptop or desktop - although not cheap at around £4,000.

Click here to read more about the Grass Valley hardware.

Matrox

We would recommend Matrox as the hardware which not only adds extra i/o to Premiere Pro but also improves the program.  Their current range of Matrox MXO2 products, which support Premiere Pro CS5 and will support CS5.5 in June 2011, will handle all the ins and outs you need.  The MAX versions of these will also add extra realtime effects and faster H264 encoding.

Black Magic

Black Magic cards do not improve Premiere performance; what they do is to add extra i/o to Premiere cheaply.  the Intensity Pro adds HDMI and component i/o for around £150, or you can add HD-SDI for less than £300!

Read more about the Black Magic range of cards.

Black Magic also work with other programs - Sony Vegas on the PC and Apple Final Cut Pro on a Mac.  Black Magic cards already support Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 - one of the first to do so!